Bedroom closets, kitchen cabinets, and other storage units commonly include drawers at the base for storing various items such as shoes, clothes, pots and pans, or cleaning tools and solutions. Often, such drawers are placed beneath other storage compartments that may contain heavy items; the weight of such items may crush breakable or damageable items stored within the drawers unless properly supported.
For example, a bedroom closet containing shoe drawers at the bottom may contain a sliding door concealing its middle and upper compartments. It is a frequent occurrence that the considerable weight of a sliding-door combined with that of the overall structure of the closet above the shoe drawers inflicts damage on the drawers and the shoes within them.
Previous patents have dealt with the subject of offering additional support for drawer and drawer fixings in various ways. U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,405 discloses a fitting or brace for anchoring drawer rails to a rear or side wall. U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,907 describes a brace that may be installed on a drawer to grant support and prevent the drawer from derailing or breaking when heavy items are stored within it. Though both of the fittings described in these patents provide additional support to the drawers, they are designed to deal with the weight of the items placed within the drawers and not with the weight of those above them.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,936 describes a closet system containing a plurality of support members. This system is well supported throughout all compartment units and drawers. However, the support members are built in to the system and cannot be installed on any other existing closet system.
The main objective of the present invention is to provide a drawer brace system that will support drawers positioned at the bottom of a storage unit and prevent the weight of the unit and its upper contents from damaging the drawers and the items within them. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such a brace system that is easy to install and may be used with any existing storage unit that includes drawers positioned in the manner described above.